First day in pads for football

BY ANDRES FOCIL

FAYETTEVILLE – The University of Arkansas football team continued practice Friday with a workout inside Walker Pavilion due to weather. The session marked the first time this spring that the team was in pads.

"We’ve been installing the last two days and today was the third day of installation," said UA offensive coordinator Garrick McGee. "When you continue to install on offense and defense and then mix them together and add pads and go inside there were some mistakes. The attitude is right though. This is a different team and these kids are about the right stuff. I’m pleased with them and we’ve got to get our execution right, but the attitude is right."

The offense is utilizing practices to look at different elements of what the coaching staff calls the "Shot" with hopes of strengthening the run game.

"Spring ball gives you an opportunity to look at some things and see how you like it and evaluate it," said McGee. "You can get a lot of stuff on tape to study in the summer time. It’s going well and there are definitely some elements of it that will help us. We threw the ball out of the shot last year with a lot of play action passes out of it. We really wanted to find a way to upgrade our run game so that we can continue forward with play action pass. We feel like that is one of the best parts of our offence. We need to see it more in live action and continue to study what fits best for us."

Arkansas returns to the practice field Saturday at 10 a.m. The Razorbacks will utilize half of the workout for practice and the team will scrimmage for half of the practice.

"What I’m looking for is mental and physical toughness meaning when they get tired they can still execute our offense and their fundamentals," said McGee. "When things go wrong, having the ability to snap right back and go on to the next play is going to be important to us. Another thing I’m looking for is guys running with the ball after a catch or contact. We have big, strong athletes that are fast and we have to push them to be more violent as they are running the football. I expect our quarterbacks to execute our offense tomorrow."